Ever impressed by amazing Amalfi

By Petronella Wyatt, Daily Mail

Last updated at 13:34 17 November 2008

The Amalfi coast has been adored by emperors and celebrities alike

The occasion calls for champagne, and luckily, I have some.

I am, you see, sitting in a Jacuzzi that boasts the best view of any I have known. This Jacuzzi, in my bathroom in Positano's Le Sirenuse hotel, is the eighth wonder of the world. I wonder if I can take it home.

Around me are the emerald hills of Positano, south-west Italy, its little houses gleaming like gems in a necklace set in the silver of the sea below. The caressing bubbles in the Jacuzzi seem to mimic its gentle lapping. In the distance, a sinuous island rises from the water resembling a woman with three nipples.

What's a girl like me doing in a Jacuzzi like this? Researching the cultural legacy of the Amalfi coast, that's what.

Forget five-star hotels, home-made tagliolini and all those beautiful people - including Jackie Kennedy, Paul Newman and Sophia Loren (who still has a villa here) - who have walked the cobbled streets. What interests me is why such diverse artistes as Wagner, Edvard Grieg, J. M. W. Turner and D. H. Lawrence were drawn here like iron filings to a magnet. It can't have been a Jacuzzi.

About ten miles to the left of me are the gardens of the Villa Rufolo in Ravello. Wagner said he would never have composed Parsifal had he not been inspired by its tangled beauty.

Without Positano's bay we would have fewer Turner seascapes. Tennessee Williams penned Cat On A Hot Tin Roof after hearing the story of a dysfunctional local family. Gore Vidal said the majesty of the view from his house in Ravello spurred him to write Lincoln.

Moreover, without the coast's amethyst sunsets, a local songwriter called Eduardo di Capua would never have composed O Sole Mio. Where would Cornetto ice cream ads and Pavarotti have been without that?

So, reader, this is not an article about hedonistic trivia.

I emerge from the Jacuzzi, slip into something less comfortable and leave my room with its marbled floors and Medici-esque antiques to catch the evening bus to Ravello.

The weeks of autumn and early winter are ideal for the southern Amalfi coast, as are those of February until the start of the high season in July.

There are no large groups of tourists, and the sun shines every day, warm enough for sunbathing and even a dip in clear, blue-green sea.

Ravello is 400 metres above sea level, and many of its houses are built into the hills, punctuated by breathtaking ravines revealing secret coves once used by pirates.

Every year there is a famous music festival which officially finishes at the end of November but, in reality, carries on well into the New Year.

Originally dedicated to the works of Wagner, the festival is Italy's oldest. Musicians and performers have included Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein and Rudolf Nureyev, who once appeared on the stage above the sea to perform an impromptu series of leaps.

Firm favourite: Sophia Lauren is still a big fan of the Amalfi Coast

The main stage is in the Rufolo gardens. I wander around the remains of its 13th-century castle.

The garden is in sections linked by stone arches. In the centre is an opening which reveals plinths and columns; it is overgrown with wildflowers seemingly guarding a majestic well. In 1880, when Wagner saw the well, which appears to lean towards the sea, he wrote: 'The enchanted garden of Klingsor has been found at last' - a reference to the wizard's magic garden in Parsifal.

I walk to the nearby Villa Cimbrone to stand on its famous 'terrace of infinity'. It stretches above the sea with Roman busts in a row, like sentinels. It is a view seemingly without beginning or end. I wonder if Le Sirenuse might move my Jacuzzi here?

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The glory of this coast is its dualism. When the sun sets and the stars stand out bright and clear, high-mindedness gives way to hedonism.

No wonder the Roman emperors had their holiday homes around here. Both Augustus and Tiberius sojourned near Ravello before building houses on nearby Capri.

Tiberius liked to swim in circles, while teenage boys and girls paddled beside him massaging his legs. Was this the first Jacuzzi?

An Italian friend who knows the area well says that Romanesque partying has been revived by the more louche inhabitants of the coast once the foreigners are out of the way. I hear tales of wild toga evenings given by counts.

I decide to look for some wild parties. To my delight, I spy a very louche English peer and former Tory minister outside a restaurant. I ask him if he has been to any toga parties. He says, repressively, that he is here for the culture.

The next day, I take a 20-minute journey to the village of Amalfi. The American author John Steinbeck liked Amalfi so much he stayed there for two years. I am staying at the Santa Caterina hotel which, like Le Sirenuse, is family-owned. It is run by the Gambardellas.

Built in 1880, it nestles in an arboretum. The Santa Caterina grows its own fruit and vegetables, and is one of the few hotels on the coast to have a private beach.

Signora Ninni Gambardella is like a mother-hen. Worried by my lack of a wedding ring, she takes me to see the honeymoon suite.

But this is actually a little round house of infinite fancy, set apart from the rest of the hotel. It has a charming round sitting room, a round bed and its own garden with an infinity pool.

Even the treadmills in the gym have views. I don't know why all the frustrated, vista- deprived characters in E. M. Forster's A Room With A View didn't come here instead of Tuscany.

In fact, it is impossible to avoid a view. My breakfast is so placed that it has a view of half of Italy, as well as the sea.

The Jacuzzi has an indoor view: the bathroom has no windows, but is painted with entrancing frescoes.

In Amalfi itself, the tiled cathedral lends an almost Moorish feel. In the torpor of the midmorning a dog lies on its steps. There is a palpable sense of wellbeing, as if nothing bad can happen here.

Back admiring the frescoes in my bathroom, I begin to sneeze.

The cold water in the Jacuzzi has given me a chill. For the rest of my stay the view is mainly of my hanky.

This has a positive result.

I get out a book on the life of Wagner with a CD, and return to London able to hum the overture to Tristan und Isolde.

Travel Facts

A four-night trip starts at £1,644 pp based on two sharing. This includes return flights to Naples, two nights' B&B at the Hotel Santa Caterina, two nights' B&B at Le Sirenuse and private transfers. Abercrombie & Kent (0845 618 2213, www.abercrombiekent.co.uk.